Ali Muhammed, 27, with his wife and daughter, on their way home from the immigration center in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 5, 2007. The family are refugees from Iraq.
The view from Alaa's apartment reveals streets and sidewalks carpeted in fresh snow, a tableau of tranquillity half a world away from the chaos of Iraq. But inside, the war is never far from his mind. The television set is turned at high volume to a talk show on Baghdadi TV, an Iraqi satellite channel. Only Arabic books line the bookshelves in the living room; Alaa and his roommate, Ali Hamad, an ophthalmologist from Baghdad, barely speak English, let alone the language of the country in which they have sought refuge. As he welcomes a visitor with the typical Iraqi drink...
